Only in that it might stir some cross-Tasman feelings... which I'm sure you understood...

I might add here that it seems remiss of those choosing the pics for the AGP book that they didn't use this one. They did use some of Dave van Dal's slides for that race, but this one seems to me to do more than just put a picture on the page.

Grid positions were set by their times in the qualifying races. Mildren never finished so he was on the back of the grid.

Another fine point... I read somewhere that the Lotus 12 had an MGA gearbox. Not so... or at least by what I remember Graham Howard telling me, and strangely enough it was he who posted that it was.

What he told me, many years ago, was that the gearbox was from an MG Magnette... the one that shared body panels with the Wolseley 4/44. It had the clutch actuation at the top of the bellhousing, which gave clearance at the sides for the driver's feet and pedals, I guess.

New Zealander, Tom Clark in #22 Ferrari returning to the pits after practice

Len Lukey in #33 Cooper Bristol returning from practice with other cars.

Grid forming up for start of AGP -Looks like Otto Stone in white overalls on left with back to camera with Stan Jones to the right in fawn jacket. Len Lukey in white crash helmet and red overalls and in the background on the right it looks like Charlie Dean striding accross in front of the Maybach #1 which Ern Seeliger drove

Originally posted by kaydee Len Lukey in #33 Cooper Bristol returning from practice with other cars

Actually the Lukey-Bristol, his second.During the year Lukey had put all the Cooper-Bristol mechanicals in a new chassis, which he ran for the first time at Rob Roy on 27 July (without bodywork). The Lukey-Bristol crashed into a tank-stand at the top of the hill, throwing its driver out, and continuing on to take out the timing gear and collide with a parked car. The new chassis was wrecked, though Lukey had laid down more than one, and soon had the car rebuilt and fitted with the bodywork seen here.

Built on a Singer chassis, from memory. I think I have details here somewhere:

Bill Cooke's Peugeot Special

They became one of the best-known Peugeot dealers with their Mobilgas service station forecourt covered in 203s and 403s in the late fifties. They had a busy workshop, and around the back they wrecked the battered examples of the marque that came their way. The Parramatta Road, Flemington, site now struggles to avoid choking on the fumes of the overpass to the Olympic stadia and the cars struggling to find parking in the adjoining Markets.

Both Bill Cooke and Norm Saville raced 203s under the Cooke & Saville banner, but Bill had a desire to go faster. He bought the latter day Rizzo Riley, less engine, and fitted a good 403-bore 203 engine.

Backyard Beginnings

The car had been crashed before his purchase, however, and in the repairing it had been fitted with a pre-war Chev axle and cable brakes. Not unknown in those times, but known to be inferior. And the car was so inferior that Bill elected to put the engine in a new car of his own making.

In his Auburn backyard he schemed out and put together this device, a Singer chassis shortened at both ends supporting the Peugeot engine and box. At the front a 203 crossmember was bracketed on, with its familiar transverse leaf spring and shock absorber upper links.

A frame was made at the rear to support another transverse leaf, which conveniently utilised the original 203 shock absorber links to connect to the cast aluminium axle housings. Lateral location was by Panhard rod, as on all Peugeots.

The engine was well equipped, sporting a magneto, internal modifications and some nice exhausts. Carburetion, strangely enough, was a simple single Solex just like they came with. A Peugeot gearbox and a shortened standard torque tube was used to transmit power back to the worm drive diff, and the engine sat back about eight inches behind the front crossmember.

A photo taken in the early stages of construction shows that the complete 403 steering column was laid almost horizontally along the engine bay, with the wheel mounted centrally in front of the driver, but the column running off to the right of the rocker cover, two universal joints then taking the column steeply down to the rack and pinion. The steering wheel was thus almost vertical, but angled to the right about seven degrees. Wheels were standard Peugeot, sometimes drilled, with combinations of 15” and 16” used from time to time.

Bodywork was steel, formed on and welded to bent round tubing. It was tidy if ungainly. Early races saw the car carrying a makeshift tail section, but its later form was in place before the AGP at Bathurst in 1958, except for the nose piece. A rounded form of light steel was made by the same panel beater who shaped the second tail section, initially with quite a small air intake aperture. This was probably enlarged after it was found that insufficient air was getting to the 203 radiator that sat low down ahead of the front suspension. Finally, it seems, the tail was replaced with what appears to be a fibreglass job with a more rounded form.

The car and the way it came about gives a good idea of how many cars ‘just growed’ in the post-war era. Opportunities were taken, desirable components sourced, costs and construction time kept low by just fitting things together without regard for the latest racing technology. ‘Run what you brung’ was still the catchcry, for even though Sports Cars were not allowed in the 1958 AGP Cooke was not at the back of the grid in this car, being 20th in a field of 28.

And, on the day, this car diced with the well-known Nota Consul. A much lighter car, built with a space frame in the famous Smith St Nota works about four miles from Cooke’s home, it did incorporate some of that mid-fifties racing technology. It had a wide variety of diff ratios (Cooke could only use the 5.75:1 ratio until the 403B came out in 1960), was built for a man who planned to do things with it, had a smaller frontal area and an engine slightly larger than the Peugeot.

The car raced at Mt Druitt, Bathurst and Orange before the engine came out in 1961 to go in another tin top Peugeot. An indication of its performance can be found in the 1960 Easter Bathurst results, where a lap in 3:20.9 and flying eighth speed of 107.78mph (Denis Cooke is sure he recalls a figure around 128mph on one occasion) are shown. The car was thirteenth and last, a lap down on twelfth, five laps down on the winner of the 26-lap Bathurst 100. That was its last Bathurst start, its first main-race finish.

Even though Bill and Norm were in the scrap metal business as well as the wrecking yard business, it was apparently sold complete less engine to someone near Lithgow and sat in a shed for decades. Too low for paddock bashing, too slow for modern racing, its owner must have lost interest, but whether he buried it in a well, still has it in a shed or dismantled the remainder, we just don’t know.RAY BELL

The Tornado
A locally-built "special" with Chevrolet Corvette power
The other car on the front row is Lex Davison's 3-litre ex-F2 Ferrari
These three cars fought a great battle in the race but only the Ferrari finished

Originally posted by David McKinney The TornadoA locally-built "special" with Chevrolet Corvette powerThe other car on the front row is Lex Davison's 3-litre ex-F2 FerrariThese three cars fought a great battle in the race but only the Ferrari finished

With the Tornado eventually striding away to a 10s lead...

Comprising a ladder chassis of large diameter round tubes, the front crossmember fabricated to take Peugeot 203 front suspension pieces, and an independent rear end using Holden wishbones. It had a Halibrand quick change rear, as I recall, and some kind of four speed gearbox.

The car was built originally to use a 4.3 (or thereabouts) side valve Ford V8 with a hemi-head overhead valve conversion made by the owner, Lou Abrahams. This had originally been made to fit into a boat that was raced at Albert Park (on the lake, of course...) but it tore the boat up with its power and he fitted it to an old Alta chassis.

After that was seriously crashed at Bathurst (at around top speed down Conrod Straight) the new chassis was built. Ted Gray recovered physically and drove it with great verve. The old Ford, even if rejuvinated with that ohv conversion, was soon discarded when the lighter and more powerful short-stroke Chevs became available.

Yes, I must admit that I did play around with the Jack Myer's pic to try and improve the shadow area and that for some reason it did change the colour of the REDeX sign more so than the colour of the car.

Anyway I'm glad you enjoy the pics.

I was originally hoping that this thread would flush out more photos like Terrys' so that we could all share some memories of the halcyon days of Australian motor racing. However, as long as I'm not boring anyone I'm happy to scan and post more.

Billboard located at Murray's Corner showing the layout of the Bathurst circuit in the early '60's

Starting grid, Bathurst AGP 1958. Another of the small number of slides Dave Van Dal took that day. This has been posted some time ago on another thread, but it's worth a second look.

My collection is very small - I was given a few rolls of old slides plus a pile of strictly local b+w "snaps" of Caversham and some country circuits. I also have access to Ken Devine's albums of amateur photos of the WA scene taken from about 1960 on.

Dave took another pic of the tail end of the field disappearing towards the first corner, and in the bottom right hand of that pic was a better pic of that photographer, not to mention a cine photographer.

Well, that's John Schroder in the Nota Consul scarpering along on his own, I have no idea if that's Lou Abrahams with the camera or not. But I would think he'd be the only one in the team wearing the overalls and wielding a camera...

Interesing point from the AGP book about the race, explaining why all the cars...

... are sitting there with covers over them to keep them warm. After the warm up lap, there was a delay as oil was cleaned up at the cutting. There wasn't to be another warm up lap. The second photo seems to comply with that too.

Hi Gerard - Unfortunately I don't have many Maserati photos but here's one of Doug Whiteford in his ex - Behra 300S - Chassis #3055 - taken at Albert Park for the Victorian Tourist Trophy meeting in November 58

That's a good pic of the BRM Scarab - however I can't say that I recall the BRM engined Scarab.Was it originally the rear engined Buick V8 Scarab that Lance Reventlow brought to Australia in 62 and raced at Sandown Chuck Daigh?

Chuck Daigh in rear engined Buick Scarab at Sandown in 62

Close up of Buick V8 in Scarab car

Scarab Pit at Sandown with Lance Reventlow, his film star wife Jill StJohn and Chuck Daigh

Yes, I am sure it was the same BRM raced by Gurney at Ballarat. With a subsequent engine swap. I reckon Glass realised he couldn't afford to race and maintain a f1 BRM engine - or possibly BRM wouldn't sell one to him - and used a racing Chev V8 ex Scarab as a better choice.

Looks like a Holden grey motor to me, painted red. Good old side-plate six, 4 main bearings. The carbs/exhaust are on the corrrect side for a Holden. I had another look at the original scan enlarged high, but the focus is on the men, not the engine, which is somewhat soft and gives no further detail.

A '57 Chev towing a Rice trailer. You don't see that any more. Very nice stuff.

Nice man Mr Rice,I remember when my father bought his magnificent Rolls Royce Phantom 111,with body work by Gurney Nutting/H.R Owen a 3 position sedanca saloon.Gee that was a good by in '68 paid $4,000 and sold it in about '74 for $50,000.Now worth about a million US.At the time i think Mr Rice was in financial debt.